


interlude to a guiltless exile

by The_Resurrection_3D



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Characters Watching Disney Movies, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Interspecies Romance, M/M, Non-serious Suicide Mentions, Sexual Humor, animal death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-06-30 01:23:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19842628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Resurrection_3D/pseuds/The_Resurrection_3D
Summary: Matt looks into those haunting eyes – silver pools without white, only large cuts of black. Shark’s eyes.Looking for too long makes Matt feel like when he’s dreaming and the tide’s pulling the earth out from under his feet. “How long can you survive out of water?”





	interlude to a guiltless exile

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [An Apex Clone in the Zeno Colony](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711202) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account). 



> I saw someone on tumblr complaining about the lack of TordMatt fluff and I had to challenge myself. 
> 
> Also hands myself an L for already having a fic named peter pan syndrome.

The cliff above is known for suicides. Well, suicides and sheep falling over the side, cracking their dumb little heads wide open on the rocks below, wool damp and heavy with sea salt by the time the shepherds come to collect them.

Wool, which is gray. Grey like the hair the merman just plucked from the top of his head. His head which he now wants to throw over the side of ole Beachy Head itself, letting his brains wash out to sea and his body pass through the channel where Whoever Above ripped England off the continent like a scab.

Tord tries to pull Matt back to himself, but only manages to miss and flop face-first into the sand bar Matt’s now pacing across, counting off childhood habits on his fingers. “I need to go watch my old VHS tapes; I need to get back into scene unironically; I need to listen to ponycore again –"

“Scene? Ponycore?” Tord pushes himself up on his hands, spitting out salt and dark sand. “Matt, you're not making any sense.”

A dismissive hand behind his back. “It's old human stuff, don't w—no, WAIT.” Matt spins, reaching down for Tord’s hands, cold and slimy as always, but that only means he has an excuse to hold them tighter. “I'll show you! It's infinitely less pathetic if I have you here with me.”

Tord looks from their clasped hands to Matt’s face, a crooked smile and suppressed laughter. “I'm glad?”

“You’re going. It’ll be fun.” Matt grabs Tord’s shoulders as a wave crests over them, the water and blinding sun overhead glittering his scales brilliant crimson and amber. Matt looks into those haunting eyes – silver pools without white, only large cuts of black. Shark’s eyes.

Looking for too long makes Matt feel like when he’s dreaming and the tide’s pulling the earth out from under his feet. “How long can you survive out of water?”

* * *

In the end, Matt brings his car as close to the water as he can and hefts Tord into the back seat, a drenched towel wrapped around his gills – less for the oxygen and more for the cover. Tord smooths the beach towel over his tail fin, hackles raised at every passing car, feeling eyes boring into his skin like parasites.

At the stoplight, Matt pops open the glove-box and tosses a snapback and a pair of sunglasses into Tord’s lap. Then Matt’s own phone. “Take a selfie and then post it to my Snap story.”

Tord reels, though his lips pull up in a smile. “This again?”

“I wanna show you off!”

“Why the hat, though?” Tord asks as he puts it on anyway.

“Number one, it makes your scales look more like freckles and number next, I’m douchebagsexual.”

A sudden blast from a car horn has Tord nearly jumping out of his own skin.

Matt reaches back as best he can, curling his fingers into Tord’s, an unseen wince as claws gently dig into his soft human skin.

“Thank you, Mattholomew.” Then a heartbeat, and as if remembering something, he adds, “You’re looking really great today.”

“Like I always do.”

“Like you always do.”

Another pregnant pause. “If it makes you feel any better, our hair really only starts turning white when we’re already starting to dissolve.”

“Dissolve?”

“Yeah. Into sea foam. It’s an evolutionary mutation so we don’t leave bodies for human hunters to bring back with them.”

Matt cries out with a fist-pump, swerving the car so hard into a turn that Tord cuts deep ruts into the cushions and door. “I knew it!” Matt smacks the steering wheel, the horn causing a flurry of stuffing as Tord jerks a handful out of the seat.

After waving down Matt’s profuse apologies, Tord asks, “What did you already know?”

Matt grins. “I always knew in my heart-of-hearts Hans Christian Anderson had fucked a fish before.”

* * *

Matt manages to flop Tord into the wagon he uses for Edd’s giant cooler, draping the towels over him as they ride up the elevator, get stuck in an overlong conversation with the old woman from room 230, and finally drag themselves into Matt’s tiny bathroom. The wagon is too wide, so Matt helps Tord crawl out and rest against the sink, Tord’s face pallid as he ties the damp towel around his gills, burying his nose in it.

“Thanks for holding on for me, love,” Matt soothes as he tests his hand on the bathwater. “Even though you didn’t post to my Snap story like I asked you to.”

“You were about to run us off the cliff.”

“But did I _actually?_ I think not.”

A pained chuckle, and Tord bends forward, resting his sweating forehead on his crimson tail. He sighs deeply, promptly a “Just give it a minute!” before he turns his head to the side. Matt’s apartment is covered with photographs of himself the way a library is covered in books, or a dragon’s cave in precious gems – which, honestly, Tord more or less expected. He can even see a few pictures with him printed off and encased in those cutesy, seashell-emblazoned frames from the tourist traps that dot his backyard.

Matt has never been a local at heart.

But more important than that is the full-length mirror in the corner of Tord’s vision, rested against the wall with a…

“Matt?”

“Yes, dear?” Matt asks, finally standing to help Tord into the tub.

“Am I hallucinating, or do you have a mirror out there with a big phallus stuck on it?”

“Oh that?” Matt leans over Tord to look. “Yeah, but it’s all cracked now – been meaning to get a new one, but, y’know, effort.”

Tord’s response flounders in his throat.

* * *

They set up on the floor, Matt nesting in a pile of pillows and blankets next to the bathtub with his laptop positioned atop the toilet, charger plugged into his electric razor’s usual outlet. _Peter Pan_ on the screen, Tord’s arms folded against the side so they both can rest their heads against them. Tord feels as he so often does a kiss pressed into his hair.

Humans are very obsessed with their mouths. Tord vividly remembers how Matt had grabbed him and slammed their lips together as they’d watched their fifth sunset sink below the horizon, how Matt had then laughed himself out of the kiss to say, “You taste so fucking salty.”

On the screen, the young girl in blue says so sadly, _Because I have to grow up tomorrow,_ and the fool playing with his shadow reacts as if she’d told him she was walking to her execution.

“Why are humans so obsessed with age?” Tord asks. “I mean growing older isn’t _great_ for us either, but the way I hear you humans talk about it makes it sound like torture.” He holds out his palm, fingertips dotting Matt’s freckles the way he so often likes to do.

“Because it is,” Matt grouses, resting into Tord’s hand. “I’ll get wrinkles and stop believing in fairies and I won’t be able to see you anymore.”

Tord pulls Matt’s chin to face him, chiding gently, “The Irish always believe in fairies.”

Matt smiles and says, “That doesn’t help with the getting old part.”

“They could help.”

Matt looks at Tord like he’s suggested Matt castrate himself. Tord only laughs, so Matt shoves Tord’s hand away. “I _knew_ I couldn’t trust you!”

“How do you mean?”

“Remember what I told you, about my brother?”

Tord blows a raspberry. “Sounds like he got the better deal, if you ask me. Seals aren’t as mean as dolphins, anyway.”

“Wasn’t your ex-girlfriend a dolphin?”

“My _cousin's,_ and he dated a freshwater dolphin who broke up with him by trying to bite his dick off. Which still isn’t as bad as being a surfacer, if you ask me.”

“Which I didn’t.”

Tord sinks back into his arms with a smug little smile on his face, tapping Matt’s nose. “At least _I_ don’t have to stress out about whether my corpse will be pretty.”

Matt flicks Tord’s back. “Art preservation is a necessary cultural service!”

* * *

In the end, they watch movies until Matt falls asleep, head and arms piled atop a towel on the edge of the tub despite the plethora of pillows propping him up. Tord wipes his hand off on Matt's sleeve and flops half-out of the tub to turn off his laptop. Matt stirs as water splashes onto his comforter, but quickly settles back to sleep.

He can't really get out to turn off the lights, so he simply moves the shower curtain, throwing it over Matt like a blanket.

With fingers as sharp as a razor Tord gently brushes a few stray orange strands out of Matt's face, wetting them down to his skin. Remembering Matt excitedly asking him if their kids ("it's a hypothetical, just walk with me") would have webbed fingers and toes and a taste for raw fish, like the brother he'd had who'd been stolen by the seals when Matt wasn't yet old enough to walk.

Remembering how Matt had said it with all the weight and drama of his favorite sports team winning a few weeks prior.

In the trash can, the evidence of two whole plates of takeout sushi.

Tord plucks another gray hair out from the top of Matt's crown; "Serves you right for forgetting about me."

**Author's Note:**

> A few things: 
> 
> The idea of Mermaid!Tord/Human Matt is shamelessly taken from the third chapter of my friend Sayla's "An Apex Clone in the Zeno Colony "-- it's a collection of several MattTord ficlets, from angst to pure fluff, which you should definitely check out! Additional inspiration is taken from this [fancomic](https://senya-sucks.tumblr.com/post/186342796342/quick-comic-about-my-headcanon) by senya-sucks. I also had vague memories of either burnt-out-commie's or whyareyoureyesblack's mermaid AU Tord in the back of my head, but I can't remember whose and tumblr's search function sucks, but go check both of them out regardless. 
> 
> The title is taken from Charlotte Smith's poem ["Beachy Head."](https://genius.com/Charlotte-smith-beachy-head-annotated)Which is a masterpiece and is also worth the effort it takes to read/fully process it. The lines are: _"Early it came, / And childhood scarcely passed, I was condemned, / A guiltless exile, silently to sigh, / While Memory, with faithful pencil, drew / The contrast."_
> 
> Thanks for reading! All feedback is appreciated!


End file.
